Transportation and Logistics Collaborative
The Transportation and Logistics Collaborative is an initiative of the Global Supply Chain Institute, working with faculty from the Department of Supply Chain Management, Center for Transportation Research, and Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. Grounded in the rich, 80-year tradition of teaching and research in transportation by UT’s business faculty, TLC bolsters the understanding of how transportation systems, policies, and industry interact in the United States.
TLC aims to be a leading contributor to education, research, and benchmarking for executive leadership in the logistics profession. The collaborative works explicitly to support economic development efforts within the field of transportation and logistics in Tennessee and beyond.
The collaborative seeks to:
- Be the first point of contact for information, education, and research in logistics and transportation in Tennessee.
- Act as a repository of information concerning the different facets of the discipline.
- Engage in partnerships that achieve excellence by solving real-world problems that achieve bottom-line impact; graduate students with real-world project experience; produce cutting-edge research that is relevant, applicable, and impactful; and leverage intellectual and monetary capital among partnering organizations through its research efforts.
Founding members of TLC include:
Transportation and Logistics White Papers
Last Mile: Supply Chain Innovation for Today’s World of Delivery Demands
According to Shopify, “a successful last mile experience makes up 53% of total supply chain costs and comes with its own set of challenges.” While challenges associated with last mile logistics are high, consumer expectations are higher. Following the global shake-up in shipping and supply chain management caused by COVID-19, consumers now expect shipped goods to arrive fast and free. This has forced supply chain leaders to innovate, pivot, evolve e-commerce methods, and deliver in ways they hadn’t before. To help business professionals better understand the shifting last mile and reverse logistics landscape, researchers working with the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative investigated this area as society’s emerged from the pandemic.
Transportation in Supply Chain Management
Transportation is the chief agent of motion in global supply chains. Ensuring continuous connectivity and visibility into where products are once they’ve shipped (i.e., end-to-end supply chain visibility) is a great challenge highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This white paper explores best practices, challenges, and predictions for transportation in supply chain management, as well as solutions for supply chain leaders when it comes to evolving transportation industry trends.
How To Apply New Supply Chain Technologies
Keeping up with the latest supply chain technologies can feel like a full-time job. Understanding, adopting, and integrating the growing list of modern supply chain innovations is an even greater challenge. This white paper illustrates supply chain best practices for applying new technology advances to your physical supply chain and organizational strategy. In an era of unprecedented advances, Paul Dittmann outlines an easy-to-follow, well-researched guide for navigating innovation.
Selecting and Managing a Third-Party Logistics Provider: Best Practices
Sponsored by KENCO Logistics
Transportation 2025 MegaTrends and Current Best Practices: Navigating in a Digital Economy
Sponsored by Proctor & Gamble.
Purchasing and Logistics: Supply Chain Management Challenges and Best Practices
For decades, supply chain leaders have focused on performance issues emerging from a lack of business alignment with supply chain operations. With significant business integration improvements and systemic processes like Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), our research has uncovered a new opportunity for supply chain optimization within the traditional supply chain functions. Firms that do not align purchasing and logistics are missing an opportunity to create value. Our team worked with hundreds of companies to identify supply chain best practices your business can implement, as well as to illustrate how high performers are “bending the chain” to better align these two key functions.
Transportation and Logistics News
What to Know About Coming US Industry Emissions Reporting Rules
Disclosure requirements for U.S. industry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are inevitable. However, what form these requirements will take is unclear, according to Alex Scott, associate professor and Gerald T. Niedert Professor of Supply Chain Management, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business. As evidence of these rules’ fait accompli, Scott cites several developments in this blog.
‘Historic’ Teamsters’ Contract Means Labor Can Flex Its Muscles Beyond Supply Chain, Expert Says
Hailed by the Teamsters as “the most historic collective bargaining agreement in the history of UPS,” their recently approved five-year contract with the shipping giant is full of wins for the union. In this follow-up Q&A, Alan Amling, who worked at UPS for 27 years, discusses how the Teamsters will leverage this win and what it says about labor’s strength in the U.S.
Making Sense of Sustainability Reporting Requirements
In previous blog posts, professor and transportation expert Alex Scott examined current standards for measuring truck emissions and proposed a science-based, data-driven method for improving how Scope 3 truck emissions are measured. Here he shares how to make sense of sustainability reporting requirements.
New GSCI Collaborative Continues Rich History of Leadership in Transportation and Logistics
This August, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Global Supply Chain Institute launched the Transportation and Logistics Collaborative (TLC), which will work closely with the Center for Transportation Research and Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs to bolster the understanding of how transportation systems, policies, and industry interact in the United States and around the world.
A Better Approach for Calculating Scope 3 Truck Emissions
In the first article of this two-part series, Alex Scott, a transportation researcher with more than two decades in the trucking industry, examined current standards for measuring truck emissions. Here he shares a science-based, data-driven method for improving how Scope 3 truck emissions are measured.
Measuring Scope 3 Truck Emissions
Companies may soon be required to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions across their supply chains. The first article in this two-part series examines current standards for measuring truck emissions. In the second article, Alex Scott, a transportation researcher with more than two decades in the trucking industry, recommends a science-based, data-driven method he’s developed for improving how scope 3 truck emissions are measured.
The Next Shift: Returns and Non-Economic Considerations Take Center Stage
This is the final post in a three-part blog series about research conducted into last-mile and reverse logistics by GSCI Fellow Alan Amling and GSCI co-faculty director Tom Goldsby. In the first two blog posts of this last-mile series, we unveiled the future of e-commerce delivery. In this post, we focus on the return leg.
The Big Shift in E-Commerce Logistics
This post is the first in a three-part blog series about research conducted into last-mile and reverse logistics by GSCI Fellow Alan Amling and co-faculty director Tom Goldsby. Download the full white paper now.